For Your Consideration - 8.30.12

This long-running British time-and-space travel series has paired up a dream team of show-runner Steven Moffat — the best writer to ever write for DOCTOR WHO — with Matt Smith, the best actor of the 11 who have played the Doctor over the years. Yet, last year’s season was a minor disappointment, with Moffat — unable to rein in his fascination with convoluted plots, in-jokes and zany ideas — turned the thrill ride into a cacophony. Still, the team still has that capability to create amazing adventures. They’ve done it before.

YOUTUBE

At first, SEX HOUSE, The Onion’s episodic parody of sleazy inebriation-and-copulation reality shows, was fairly comedic and typical — lightly mocking (and inverting) the typecasting and editing style of the genre. Quickly, however, it’s taken a turn for the hilariously dark. This is a horror movie about a house haunted not by ghosts, but by amoral reality show producers. It’s an inescapable hell of mold, rotting bananas, flies and frogs. Oh, and very little sex.

VIDEO GAME

With the Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row and the Mafia series, the vehicle-theft-and-over-the-top violence genre is becoming crowded. ButSLEEPING DOGSthoroughlyjustifies its existence by channeling the glorious excess of Hong Kong action movies. Wouldn’t every game be better with a little kung fu and slo-mo? Of course.